Day 1

After a very sound sleep, I got up around 7.15 am and just when I was getting ready, NSM brought me coffee – it felt a little too awkward for couple of reasons – one, I am not used to somebody bringing in coffee for me and second, she it too elderly a person to be bringing in coffee. Well, it happened so and we spent nearly an hour talking about the some important issues – mostly comparing people’s attitude and approach towards life. Looking around, I realized that the locality had an ancient European outlook. I had another very rare item, Idli and Chatni, for breakfast. It looks like my tongue is getting a refresher course! Nagesh, who was back from an all night work just an hour ago, dropped me off at the bus station (route # 980 at 9.37 am). The day has got off to a great start – I reached the West Falls Church Station in about 15 minutes and got the next metro (Orange Line) to Smithsonian shortly afterwards.

After taking few pictures of the Washington Monument and The Hill Capital, I headed towards The Museum of Natural History. I misread National as Natural and got into The National Museum of National History. Like other museums that I have visited in other parts of the United States, this one too was extremely clean and tidy. After spending about an hour in this museum and eating my favorite SubWay item, I headed along the Constitution Avenue, 15th Street and saw the Department of Commerce, Treasury, frontal and rear view of The White House (which I nearly missed), World Bank — all in about one hour. Then, I went to the World War II Memorial (had some food, and copied the pictures to my computer), then to Lincoln Memorial (reflection of the Washington Monument in the Reflecting Pool was a treat to my eyes), Korean War Memorial, saw Jefferson Memorial from a distance and walked slowly along Independence Avenue, seeing some old-fashioned aesthetic looking architectural wonders (Department of Agriculture) and some new ones like Department of Energy and Transportation.

Santosh Karre called to see how I was doing and this felt good particularly because most of the desis who I had seen through out the day weren’t even returning the smile. Every museum bears Smithsonian in its name and when I got into the Air and Space Museum, I was shocked. It was very very big – so big that I thought I wouldn’t do any justice if I spent just one hour seeing the exhibits. I came out of it shortly and walked back towards the Smithsonian Station – I stopped to have Hot Chocolate in one the roadside outlets and copied the pictures from the camera to the computer (yes, again). I got into the train and reached West Falls Church around 5 pm. Nagesh was at the bus terminal to pick me up and we reached home around 5.45 pm or so. I was expecting that some officer would pull me over to the side to ask question but surprisingly no one did and I realized one thing for sure – seeing Washington DC in one day is just humanly impossible!!

I spent remainder of the evening watching TV, playing with the kid, eating (variety of good food – Pulav, Raitha, KaDubu, …) and watched couple of football games.

Day 2

I got up early, around 7 am (after a bit of restless sleep early in the morning) and as was decided yesterday, after having breakfast and taking the lunch box, headed off to DC with Nagesh – he dropped me off to the bus station and I got into route # 950. Seeing a ‘big’ city on a working day gave an altogether different perspective of life – unlike yesterday, the bus was full and lot of people were even standing. The traffic wasn’t smooth either.

I got the 9.30 am train and got off at Rosslyn to change over to the Blue Line. I then went to The Pentagon around 11.15 am. One of the security officers (fully armed) told me how to go about walking and that photography was prohibited. After searching for a minute or two, I realized that the big building right next to me was The Pentagon! After walking for some distance and near the southern entrance, another officer (K. Kocher) voluntarily explained the construction process (of a 9/11 Memorial) and I continued to walk. It looks like none of my vacations will ever be complete without running into a Security Officer. This time around, I entered the protected area and an officer kindly asked me to turn back. I also realized how big the Arlington Cemetery was – it stretched all the way up to the rear side of The Pentagon. While walking back to the station, one of the officials thought I was a Pentagon employee and was waiting for me to get into their bus! I did speak to one other officer (Crabtree) while waiting for and in the train, about what I do and I like.

Then onwards, I came to Smithsonian around 12.30 pm, had some very tasty food (AvarekaLu Upma) and hot chocolate, walked around a lot, accidentally discovered the place where President Lincoln was shot (Ford Theater, 10th Street, between E and F Avenue) and died (an old house in the opposite lane), cancelled my visit to the Air & Space Museum and went to Ford Museum, seeing Archives on the way. I saw the pistol that was used in the assassination and read about the plan too. Everybody whom I saw on the street was very smartly dressed up and looked busy. The desi attitude continued for the second day in a row. After seeing some more important buildings (FBI, Internal Revenue, Justice, …), I got into (accidentally, again) The National Museum of Natural History around 2.15 pm and the collection of gems and minerals was a bit too good.

I came out around 3.30 pm, had pizza and hot chocolate (at the same place where I had hot chocolate yesterday), and headed back to West Falls Church. After waiting for a while, I got the route # 950 and got off at the Clock Tower Building, reached home around 5 pm. Next three hours were very fruitful – Nagesh gave a practical demonstration of some of the camera applications (aperture, shutter, manual, and multiple exposures, etc) and I updated my web-page (a bit) and diary. We then went to Woodlands in Germantown for dinner! The food was good and tasty